The Messenger ReBoot
by PassionandPromise
Summary: Set in the immediate aftermath of DotM. Sam chooses to stop the end of the world. There are consequences, ones that alter the lives of each and every member in NEST, both human and Autobot alike.
1. Chapter 1

A world was falling from high above.

_It didn't work._

People were screaming. Sam couldn't hear them: instead, he saw the future lighting up his very eyes.

_It didn't work._

Dylan was dead. He was lying, a crumpled heap of bone and skin, on the gravel below him. Both of their eyes were trained on the Apocalypse above them all. Sam felt the metal bar he was holding slip from his grip. It slipped, and fell, and tumbled against the statue he stood on, landing with a loud, resounding, triumphant _clank!_ on the ground.

_It didn't work._

Sam hoped that if he pushed Dylan into the control pillar, the friction between the blast and the invading body would be enough to cancel the main control pillar.

_It didn't work. _The world was falling from above. Cybertron was falling from the skies, and the force of the incoming planet, Sam knew, would destroy the Earth. Carly's face, Bumblebee's,

Optimus's, Lennox's, Epps-

Hopelessness whimpered through his body, and the ground below his feet shook with fear. His hands were twitching, his chest was caving, and the streets of Chicago became a graveyard for the dead, the lost, and the first to see the end of the world.

_"__You think you're a hero?" Dylan screamed at him, eyes wide with fear-_

_"__You're a messenger. You've always been a messenger," Mearing stated, as if it was simple fact._

Was it all too late?

Up above him, he could hear Megatron laughing with roughened glee, and the thunderous booms of bombs and gunfire and ash and smoke surrounded him, all too far away to look for help.

He knew they were out there, the Autobots, SWAT, NEST, every one of them fighting a losing battle. It was too late. _All. Too. Late._

Was this how it was meant to be?

In stories, good always won over evil. In stories, the bad guys were killed, and the good guys stood over their dead bodies and shoved their swords high into the air. Good always prevailed. Always.

But this was real life. As weird as real life had become in these past few years, he had to keep reminding himself that. Good didn't always win, not when they were extraterrestrial aliens looking to take over the planet, looking to take over the entire universe.

In front of his tired eyes, the blaring red of the pillar mocked him, taunted him, told him he was useless. He wasn't going to argue there, not when the simple fact was he couldn't actually **do **anything to save the goddamn world when it freaking needed him. The world needed people like Lennox and Epps, strong people, people who had cause and meaning for every shot they took and every step they made in their lives. They needed people like Carly and Simmons, people who could bravely face the world when a piece of their beginnings were torn away from who they were. The world needed them, more than anything else. Heroes. Not messengers. Not stupid, stupid people like him.

"The messenger delivers," he whispered. "The messenger delivers death."

Yeah. That sounded exactly like him. He wasn't the hero, only the messenger. But… he was a good guy too, and this, right here, **this** was what good guys do. His heart stuttered, but he had no choice. The control pillar stared back at him, boring its red lights into his eyes, seared his vision with the colour of blood and looming death.

Raising his shaking hands, everything became crystal clear. He was…ready. It was a sacrifice. It was a victory. It would work. He was ready, for the pain, the death, for everything that came after. His heart sickened to think of Carly, of Bee, of the people he was leaving behind- _God, he didn't want to hurt them-_

_No sacrifice, no victory._

The world flashed before his eyes. Electricity sparked the air around him, and he took a breath- and then-

* * *

The world paused.

Carly felt time stop between one and the next, and she stopped, standing in the middle of West Lake street, and her eyes were trained on Bumblebee's yellow back as they traversed one battle-ravaged street after another. Her heart broke to see the bodies, the chaos, the screams, the battered store-fronts. Her hands itched to hold Sam again.

"Bee," she whispered, and somehow, the scout's super-hearing heard her voice. He turned, metal cinching metal as he bent down to her, his cannon pointed in all directions at all times. Sam said Bee was his best friend: she didn't need any proof to see how much of it was true. Bee, Carly could well see, truly cared for his human friend, and Sam, in turn, trusted the tall, yet gentle, beast that stood as high as a God over all of them. "We need to find Sam. I've got- I-" she couldn't describe it, and her fingers grappled with the cataclysmic air around the pair of them.

_"__Sweet little lady- we gunna be a-okay," _Bee's radio churned from one station to the next, and Carly licked her lips. A sharp sensation racked her chest: she couldn't explain it, and then-

The sky above both her and Bee exploded into a thousand glittering fragments, and every single one of the fracture lines emitted from the pillars all over the world fizzled out. Cybertron fell backward into a cloud of smoking ash. She could feel the earth beneath her split, and her feet came out under her in time for Bee to catch her with one hand. She screamed, grabbed one of his fingers, and held on for dear life, and in the sudden, deafening silence that followed, not one whisper of gunfire could be heard. She didn't realise her eyes were squeezed shut until Bee abruptly moved. She opened them, wanting to see the next catastrophe before she grew numb with dread.

Above them, the sky was clear.

The darkness was gone.

Cybertron wasn't there anymore, and distantly, she could hear the anguished screams of Decepticon and Autobot alike as the world they came from was gone, gone completely. Carly breathed, afraid. Bee said nothing, absolutely nothing.

"Sam," she whispered again, and his name, like a key, jolted Bee into action. He swerved fast, as if the sight of his dead planet was of no importance to him. Maybe it wasn't. To Carly, Sam was where Bee came from: Sam was Bee's home. It had been traced in every single story Sam had murmured in the tentative darkness when the moon hung above their heads and she was sleepy from a hard day's work.

_"__I just wish he would come back- just for a little while. I just-" _

_-I want to see him, even if it's one more time-_

Carly could read minds better than she could cook.

Skids, one of the foul-mouthed Autobots Sam told her all about, brought up Bee's rear, and she looked over her shoulder to see serious eyes. She didn't see Mudflap, but further down the small street they were now on, she could make out two or three more of the Autobots racing up the street.

"Were heading back toward the main control pillar, aren't we?" Carly whispered. Bee didn't utter a word. They were heading for North Wells Street: she could see the tall buildings from here. Smoke dashed the sky high above them, and far below, Carly could make out Lennox and what she thought was Epps, as all NEST members made their way toward the one destination.

"Hey, has anyone seen Sammy-boy?" the question came from Skids.

Lennox looked up toward Bee, a question in his eyes. Carly gritted her teeth, then felt herself being brought back down to ground. She jumped off Bee's hand and rushed toward Lennox.

"You haven't seen him?" she asked. Lennox's eyes turned dark.

"The last time I saw-" he swore, before turning to the rest of the men who were quickly gathering on the street around them. "Okay, has anyone seen a kid running probably _toward_ danger rather than _away _from it like any normal human being?" Vacant eyes stared back at him. "Shit. Look, Carly, I'm sorry, but we need to secure the bottom of the tower first before we send out a search party." Carly nodded, numbness overtaking her system. Lennox started walking away. She stayed where she was.

"All the Decepti-pains-in-the-ass have been killed. There's nothing that kid can do that could _possibly_ bring another end-of-the-world situation on us right now," Epps added, swinging his gun from his shoulder to his front with ease. He stopped suddenly, then rolled his eyes. "Forget about what I just said." Carly tried to smile as all the men around her walked on ahead. She wasn't sure now. She gripped her hands to her elbows, suddenly cold. There was something seriously wrong- Jesus, what if Sam got caught under a building, or worse-

_He said he'd find me. He said he'd come back to me._

She stepped forward, trying to control her laboured breaths. She had to hold on. Sam would be okay. Sam would be fine.

* * *

Bumblebee felt a tremor run under his spark as he launched onto the street.

He couldn't explain it: it was something unnatural, scary-

He could see the control pillar, or what was left of it, smashed and torn to shredded metal among the rocky debris of the street. Small fires and what was left of the cupola that hung from the top of the building above them scattered across the street like mismatched stars.

Dylan Gould's lifeless body lay stretched close to a fragment of the pillar. Sam was nowhere to be seen.

Skids stood behind him when Bee stopped. "You tellin' me that Dylan dude stopped the pillar?"

Bumblebee didn't answer, but something inside him felt so wrong- so wrong- so incredibly wrong-

_"__Bee? Missed hanging out? Yeah, me too."_

Bee's optics took in the unnatural scene, and an eerie chill settled over the street. Everything was quiet, but the men were yelling their victories, throwing their guns in the air. Optimus was comm'ing in, and everyone- Autobot and NEST alike- were all calling rota. He distantly heard Lennox and Epps shouting, clapping hands and pumping fists in the background.

_::Where's Samuel?::_

Rachet's uneasy thrum in the background unsettled everything, sharpened everything. Bumblebee opened his optics further to scan the debris- and-

"Sam?" Carly called out, her voice a tiny whisper in the chorus of yelling screams and shouts. "Sam?"

Bumblebee simply stared at the body hidden from human view. It was behind the fallen cupola, crumpled in on itself. He took a faltering step forward. The residue heat left on the body was the same as Sam's. He took another step forward.

_::Bumblebee? Do you see Samuel anywhere?::_ Optimus.

Bumblebee still didn't answer. He off-linked straightaway, shutting down his systems just in time to catch Skids swerving to take in his line of sight. As Bee walked around the cupola, away from the masses of cheers, he found exactly what he didn't want to find.

_"__Bee? Missed hanging out? Yeah, me too."_

_"__-not even one phone call, just something to say 'Ah, hey, I'm still alive'-"_

There he was. His body, small, frail, lifeless, hugged in on itself. Burn marks stretched up and down his skin. It made sense: he would've done that, to help them all. He was always going on about being useless.

His hands hid his face, his back faced the sky. His clothes were torn, and blood seeped through from the many jagged cuts.

"Hey, Bumblebee, did you see- Oh. _Oh shit_."

Lennox hardly ever cursed. To hear him say that meant more than Bee could say. Bumblebee leaned down, and with one careful, gentle hand, he picked up the useless body. He'd carried many soldiers across battlefields before, but this-

This was different.

_"__Look, I know you want to come with me to college-"_

_"__Bee, you take my family, and you run-!"_

Primus, this was different.

Sam's arms dangled off the edge of Bee's massive hand. He really wasn't moving. His body temperature was dropping, fast-

"Can we get a medic-!" Lennox yelled at the top of his voice.

_"__Forget about it- we had a good run- it's all too bloody late- I'm going to say my goodbyes now-"_

Bumblebee couldn't find the right words. He was holding his best friend's dead body. He was babbling. Someone started screaming- he couldn't tell who it was- he kept seeing Sam's smiling

face in his optics, not the dead body he was holding- not-

A hand clamped on his shoulder. He couldn't really feel it. Was that red and blue or black and green?

What was making that keening sound?

Was Carly screaming Sam's name?

He was lowering Sam's body: it rolled away from his fingers, revealing Sam's bruised and battered face- Carly reached for him and gathered him in her arms, and he was keening a low wail as Carly cried Sam's name again and again and again-

"Ssssammmm," his vocal receptors whirred. "Ssssammmm."

Silence. His hearing receptors shut down. He didn't realise he shut off his optics until the whole world around him became nothing but darkness and the replaying the image of Sam's alive and innocent face as he reached out for him in Carly's apartment only a day or two ago.

_"__Bee? Missed hanging out? Yeah, me too."_

* * *

**_A/N::_**Hiya everyone! How's everyone been? What do you think? I spent literally a couple hours revising some of the chapters in my original The Messenger and decided that this needed to happen. Oh, man, the mistakes in the first fanfic were ridiculous! . This reboot will be a big bit different, so don't expect the same things as the last fanfic- there'll be different POV's, there'll be other side stories and so on. I'm hoping to get a little Ironhide and Will in here too, as well as Epps, Optimus, and Rachet, just for the sake of being different.

Anyways, I do hope everyone enjoys this! :D

Peace, love and roll-outs!

PassionandPromise, 28/7/2014.


	2. Chapter 2

Once, Optimus would have said he did not share the same emotions as his human comrades.

He done his duty in serving his planet- his home now- and that was that. Of course, there were times, moments, when he did feel something itch his spark, and in the past few years spent with Sam, then Lennox, Epps and the men and women he'd come to call his comrades in battle, those little itchings became feelings, and those feelings turned to familial bonds.

Truly, he was not expecting any of the human race to force a spark bond of any kind between themselves and each of his own men: Ironhide had grown very much attached to the fatherly figure in Lennox, while in Rachet he saw a close relationship shared between himself and Epps. Even the twins were close, closer than he ever expected them to be, with people who were not of their kind.

It was both a blessing to them, and a curse. Optimus knew how easily life could be taken away: he'd seen it in the battle-field when human bodies piled up, and he heard of it when Sam was killed when they were in Egypt while everyone fought to save his life.

To see Sam, the small, fragile being, who brought them all together like this, lying dead and cold in the pavement…. he never experienced a bigger shock than this. This was-

_::We should have gotten here faster::_ Rachet comm'ed.

_::It's too late for that now, Hatch:: _Skids murmured back.

Ironhide was lost.

Mudflap was gone.

This day would be one none of them would ever forget.

Dino came up behind Optimus.

_::Should we leave the humans to grieve? I don't… want to stay and see this::_

_:: We need to pay our respects::_ Optimus replied. He crouched beside Bumblebee, whose whole body had slumped forward to his knees. His helmet had been pulled down, and when

Optimus scanned him, he could see the scout had shut down his systems.

"Sam! Sam, please,_ please _come back. **Please**-"

Lennox was leaning down to Carly, gently holding her shoulders. "Carly, please-"

"**No!** He promised- he **promised **he wasn't going to leave me-"

"Carly," Epps joined in, crouching beside her, taking in the body laid before him. "He's gone. I'm so sorry, but he's gone."

Carly's wild eyes turned to face him. "**No.** He's going to come back- he _will_ come back, **he promised me**-"

Optimus felt his spark cave at the wildness in her eyes. This was their fault, their battle, and Samuel gave his life for them. Just like before. Just like every single time they involved him in

their battles, their conflicts, he risked his life for them. "Carly-" he started, before she screamed. Her jacket was stained a bloody red.

"**Don't say it! **Please,_ please,_ don't say it," her voice dulled down to mere whimpers as she let her hair fall forward. Watching her, Optimus knew she would have become his spark-mate.

If Samuel had lived.

They lost their beginnings. They lost many friends.

"I'm so sorry, Samuel," he murmured to the dead body. He dared himself to take in the crumpled form below him, knowing that his battle with Sentinel, even Megatron, should've waited.

Why didn't he take out the tower first? The thoughts running through Samuel's mind before he-

A sudden anamoly flared against his processors, and he felt a rattling in his spark chamber. What-?

_::Optimus?:: _Rachet enquired.

Optimus opened his spark chamber, and before his optics could process exactly what was going on, the Matrix blurred over his head, zooming straight toward the sky at a speed no human

would be able to follow.

Lennox heard the high-pitched squeal as the tiny diamond made it's way toward the heavens. He squinted up to the blue skies. "What the hell was that?"

"Another fucking end-of-the-world problem, I bet," Epps muttered. "On your guard!" Abruptly, every single soldier raised their long-distances to the sky. Optimus raised a patient hand.

"Hold your fire," he said.

_::What-?::_ Skids stared at the Matrix of Leadership as if whizzed higher and higher into the sky._ ::Shouldn' we try 'in take the diamond thingie down?::_

_::Optimus, did you activate the Matrix?:: _Dino comm'd.

_::No, I did not::_

"Can someone please tell me what the hell the Matrix is doing?" Lennox shouted over the rapid screech of the Matrix as it towered higher and higher. Light started to beam out of its centre, dulling the bright sun to mere starlight.** "Jesus-" **Lennox shielded a hand over his eyes. Carly bent her head into Sam's chest. The Autobots stared fearlessly up to the sky.

A resounding buzz settled over the streets, and below Carly's arms, Sam's body twitched.

"Sam?" she called, her eyes opening wide. White and blue light coated her eyes like film, and she screamed when she felt something tickle her cheek.

Time slowed down completely. Then stopped.

Carly wondered if it truly was the end of the world.

She could hear her breaths, and then she could feel Sam's chest rise…. and then fall.

She could hear his breaths.

_She could hear his breaths._

She opened her eyes, blinded against the white and blue streaks that assaulted her eyes. God, she couldn't even see the_ street_, but she could feel Sam under her. She could feel Sam under her

and _he was moving._

Bumblebee opened his optics, rebooted his hearing processors. He looked to the sky and saw feathers.

White, pearly feathers.

His spark squeaked. His fingers, massive, beastly fingers with the caress of a gentle giant, opened to capture them. They looked like snowflakes.

"What's going on?" Lennox breathed, slowly lowering his gun as the white and blue lights became less infinite and more mortal. Feathers seared his vision. He could see better, and in between one blink and then next, an Autobot-sized black arm came into focus, blocking him from the majority of blinding light. He jumped, cursed, then pointed his gun up toward a pair of familiar gentle-blue optics. He rushed to pull the safety back on, before his trigger-happy fingers could shoot the Autobot he'd come to regard as a brother.

"Y-You were dead-" he started, whispered, stared. Ironhide lifted his brows.

"I know. I was, wasn't I?" he said, and in a moment of pure un-Lennox behaviour, he rushed to the Autobot's arm and wrapped both arms around him.

"Jesus, I never got the chance to say goodbye," he muttered against Ironhide's elbow. "I thought I'd have to tell Annabelle she couldn't-" he stopped, his shoulders hunched against the metal frame of the fatherly Autobot.

In a few hours, William Lennox would swear he didn't do what he just did.

Epps blinked when he saw Lennox, suddenly shocked beyond all belief. "Ironhide was_ dead_," he muttered, trying to comprehend when exactly reality decided to toss his sorry ass out the window. A feather glanced by his shoulder, he jumped and turned to follow it as it drifted it the gravel road. "Wait-what the-" He blinked, then picked up on the sudden familiar bickering of a pair of foul mouthed twins before he could flicker the last traces of lights from his eyes. _What the hell-?_

"Mudflap! You big son of a-"

"Aw, I missed yah sorry ass too bruvah! C'mere an' give me a sloppy-ass hug!"

"Ah. Hell. No," Epps groaned, turning to face the streaking green and red colours.

"What was that-" one of the men came up behind him and tapped his shoulder. He was just as mystified as Epps was. Epps rolled his eyes and shrugged, suddenly tired.

"I've no idea. Honestly, I just wish this day was over."

"What yo' sayin' Epps? You shocked we's was brought back from the dead wid somethin' that could brin' us back from th' dead?" Mudflap chorused. "Now's, where's that Witwickedy

dude?" Epps stopped, then looked to Bumblebee, whose optics still resolutely stared to the sky, to the still-hovering Matrix.

The feathers were still falling to the ground.

_"__Sam!"_ Carly's voice hollered over everyone else. "**Sam, **come on, get up! _Come on_, Sam!"

Optimus looked down from the sky to see Sam's mouth open, begging for oxygen. Carly shoved his body up, cradling his head in her arms. "Sam, come on, **breathe**-!"

"Hey, is that Collins?" one of the men shouted, squinting down the street. **"Collins!" **Three of the men gathered around the Autobots suddenly lifted and waved their arms. "Jesus, I thought he was dead-"

"He _was _dead," Epps murmured, turning to face Collin's black-streaked face jaunting down toward them, a wide smile on his face. He was waving.

Epps saw him die.

Epps held him when he died.

Jesus Christ. What the fu-

"There's Micky! Eh, Mickey, my man, c'mere!"

"Maia! Maia, over here!"

"Eliot, you bloody bastard, you missed one hell of a fucking war!" an Irish brogue cut through the sudden chorus of name-calling as men rose from the dirt and dust of the streets all around them, waving widely and crying out laughs that could melt the roughest of hearts.

"Optimus, what is going on?" Rachet murmured, and Ironhide stepped up toward them.

"There is a light, you know.," Ironhide said in return. "At the end. It called me toward it, and when I got there I saw a face I wasn't expecting to see."

"Whose face? Please tell me it was Megatron's," Dino drawled.

Ironhide didn't answer. The Matrix was coming down from the sky, flying at breakneck speed, and Optimus was reaching for it. He opened his spark chamber in time to catch the flying object.

_"__Sam, come on, please breathe-!"_ Carly's voice reached a squeal. Optimus, silent Optimus, watched as each of Sam's fingers stretched out on the gravel by his sides. his chest caved downward, as if something was pulling him back-

_Pulling him back to death._

Sam's eyes opened, and in them Optimus, Bumblebee, Carly, and Lennox saw Cybertronian inscriptions carved into his eyes. The veins under his skin thrilled an electric blue, and when he fisted his hands and let them fall to the ground a crater around both him and Carly opened up. Bumblebee, quick to move, grabbed Carly and pulled her away from Sam's body.

Electricity was spiralling out of control around Sam. Lennox stepped back, and from Sam's mouth a guttural scream echoed through the streets of Chicago. He sat up and dug both palms into the ground below him. The ground shattered and caved around him, and Lennox stepped back further and further until Ironhide reached out and shovelled him up into one palm. The crater around Sam grew bigger and bigger.

Bumblebee whimpered, and Carly felt it.

Rachet reached around Epps, tugged him back, and the men followed.

_::It was Sam's face I saw. He was telling me to turn back. So I did:: _Ironhide said, and everything through Optimus's optics suddenly became clear.

Small stones raised themselves up from the earth around Sam, and Sam hid his face in his hands as he tried to control the sheer energy around him.

"Sam!" Carly screamed, her voice hoarse. Sam screamed. Lennox shielded his face. Epps turned away, hoping against hope that whatever was going to happen next, it wouldn't _actually _happen-

Optimus reached toward Sam. "That's** energon**," he said to the others. "That's energon coursing through his body. We need to-"

Dino stepped forward behind his leader, ready to help.

**"****Stay back!"** Sam screeched. **_"Stay back!" _**The force of his scream dragged Optimus back a few feet. Sam could control it, but not contain it. Sam didn't want the others to get hurt.

His shoulders hunched, and he seemed to grapple with the air, compacting his hands between legs, forcing his fingers down into the earth below him, and suddenly, the electricity in the air,

the energon all around them fizzled out and drained away. Lennox released a breath he didn't know he was holding, and he dropped to his knees in Ironhide's palm. Carly slumped a little too.

Sam was left sitting in the centre of a ten foot crater, his breathing laboured and his eyes unfocused. He swayed. Bumblebee darted forward.

Sam fell. Into Bumblebee's palm.

And between the pads of Bumblebee's fingers and the skin exposed on Sam's neck, a thready heart beat pounded.


	3. Chapter 3

When Sam first woke up he thought he saw an angel standing over him.

She was smiling, her eyes a glowing pink. It was the weirdest thing he'd ever seen in his life.

* * *

When he next woke up, he was standing on a sandy graveyard and the wind was blowing the sand into his eyes. He stopped trying to breathe in the sand when he realised he really was dead.

* * *

The third time he woke up, he was standing in front of a pearly set of gates, and she was there again. Pink eyes. Long, white-white-white hair dancing all around her small, childish form. Her hands were clasped behind her back.

"You have a choice, you know," she inclined her head. "What's it going to be?"

"I'm not sure I follow," he said. His voice, his body, everything, felt completely disconnected. Like he wasn't a part of himself anymore. She grinned a dimpled grin.

"Some small part of you does."

He narrowed his eyes, then pointed to the gates. "Are those what I think they are?" She shrugged, a most un-angel-like thing to do. She was an angel: he wasn't making this up.

She had wings that gestured, tall and proud, to the pearly clouds above.

"It's all there for show. So, back to reality- what do you think?"

"Uh, I think I'm dreaming."

"That's a fascinating concept," she deadpanned. "Now, do you want to go back and face what you must do, or do you want to turn away and forget about it completely? Really," she put up both small hands in front of her, her eyes round, trying to maintain an air of utter innocence, "I won't judge either way."

Sam continued to stare at her. "I'm being serious… I actually don't know what's going on."

"What does your heart say?" she said, her voice whisper-thin.

"I don't know."

"Listen to it. What is it saying?"

Sam looked around him, listening to the breathless air. After a confused moment, he decided to just go with something. "Uh, go home? I think?"

She shrugged, rolled her eyes. "Are you sure, Samuel James Witwicky?"

He stopped. Yeah, that was his name. And is friends- they were all waiting, weren't they?

Ironhide was gone.

Mudflap had been killed, hadn't he?

What about all the men in the battle in Chicago city?

"Yes," he said. "And let me bring my friends home too."

The angel smiled wider. She knew exactly what he meant. "With pleasure."

* * *

The final time Sam woke up, it was to the blinding white lights and the blue, musky strobes of Chicago's infinite skies. His skin was electric, his eyes blurred Cybertronian, and in the background, far, far away, he swore he could hear an angel's lilting voice whispering prayers through his winded ears.

* * *

_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep._

Sam's eyes flickered open to the insistent tremor of the heart monitor. He could see shades of white- where the hell was he now?

_Beep._

A whirring sound jolted his memories- that was Bee, wasn't it? He sat up, then flinched at the sudden spike of pain that spiralled up his spine. Jesus-

"Sam? Someone call Rachet- he's awake-" Carly's dolce-voice filled his ears, and Sam blinked to see a pair of beautiful doe-blue eyes, feel a pair of cool fingers as they caressed his burnt cheeks.

"Carly?" he murmured. "Where am I? What's going on?"

"You're in the hospital, Sam. Please, you need to sit back down. You need to rest." Her insistent, whisper-thin voice pushed him gently back down onto the bed. Bee's soft-blue optics hovered over Carly's head. He smiled.

"Hey, Bee," he said. Bumblebee didn't utter a word in reply. He simply reached over Carly's head and with one gentle finger, ruffled the top of his head. "Hey-!" Sam started, grinning wickedly. "Dude, I'm not a kid anymore- you don't need to to that!"

_'__Come? Home. Home.' _ E.T's familiar voice thread the air on butter-soft fingertips, and Sam stopped laughing, his hands on the finger still hovering above his head.

"Sorry, Bee," he said. He couldn't look at the scout's face. Somehow, he knew the depth of sadness in those eyes would tear his heart in two. "Really. I'm sorry."

_Bright blue lights-_

Sam blinked.

"Optimus, you cannot-"

"Rachet, we need to speak with Samuel. It is of great importance-"

"The boy is just after waking, Optimus. For Primus sakes, could you not let him rest- he's only been out for the cunt for a few hours-"

_Bright blue lights-_

Sam let go of Bee's finger, looked up toward the wide opening of the med bay. Optimus and Rachet were both bickering amongst themselves. He smiled slightly: the two men would never argue on the battle-field but here, in the aftermath, they were as likely to try and rip each other's throats off -

"If it makes you feel any better, Rachet wanted to sedate the bejesus out of you just so you wouldn't wake up for another week," Epps's base-voice filled the room, and Sam turned to see him standing close to the heart monitor. "Of course, Optimus- being Optimus- said he needed to speak with you about the Matrix or something and refused to let you freakin' sleep." The underlying anger thrummed through his voice. "Gotta love Big Buddha's logic, eh?"

"Samuel?" Sam turned to face the big blue optics of Optimus's eyes. He jumped. Carly's hand on his shoulder kept him safely tethered to the bed.

"Yes?"

"You used the Matrix, Samuel."

"The Matrix? What do you mean? I- I don't understand-"

"**Primus,** Optimus Prime!" Rachet grabbed Optimus's shoulder and wrenched him back. "Would you leave the boy alone? He's had enough excitement to last a few more days, don't you think?"

Sam didn't know the Autobots long. Hell, he barely ever saw them since their fight in Egypt, and that was two years ago. The only reason why Sam was here right now was because he was chased by (another) Decepticon, who killed a colleague (okay, he barely knew the guy, but still), destroyed his workplace (could you call it a workplace if you only worked there a day or two?) and was a part of an evil army that wanted to (yet again) take over the world.

Sam didn't know the Autobots long. But he understood fear when he saw it on Optimus's face.

"What's wrong?" he asked, staring up into Optimus's eyes as if he could find the answer lying somewhere in there. "Is there something I can help with?"

Optimus didn't answer, not for a moment. The silence was grave, deadening. Something stirred in Sam, a conscious sliver of something _not right_.

_Bright blue lights and a sky full of starlight and a pair of pink eyes and a choice to be made-_

"Samuel, you managed to control the Matrix, and bring our fallen comrades, both human and Autobot, back to life," he said, his gravel-bound voice a distinct unravelling in the air around them. The emotion wasn't there, not in his voice, but something in the slight curve of his shoulder, the grip of his fist, the faint bend of his neck, told Sam the Autobot leader was indebted to him in more ways than one.

He didn't know the Autobots long, but he could read them as if they were brothers.

"How?" Optimus finished. Sam opened his mouth-

-then closed it.

"Um," he stuttered after a while. "I don't know?"

He didn't say anything about his after-death experience. He imagined he dreamt the whole thing up. He must've: angels weren't real.

The silence became earth-shattering. Sam saw a blur of yellow to his right, but didn't dare look up. _"You have a choice, you know?"_

"I really don't know," he said, more sure. "I just… wanted to come home, and then- I-I can't really remember. I'm sorry." His head fell into his hands, and the sudden spike of the heart monitor had him jumping again.

"Sam," Carly whispered, placing her hand on his shoulder. A tremor rippled under his skin. It felt… weird.

"Where's everyone else?" he murmured. "It's too quiet here."

"Were at base in Diego Garcia," Epps answered. He crossed his arms. "It's quiet 'cause everyone's divided between here and our last base. Someone needs to do clean-up," he added. "Lennox is gone home, had to leave when we finished up in Chicago."

"D-Diego Garcia?" Sam looked up, a frown on his face. "Where in the world- Isn't that a person?"

Epps rolled his eyes. "That's what everyone usually says. Yeah, _were on a person right now_, Sam. Great to see death hasn't changed your wonderful sense of humour."

Carly pursed her lips in smile, then followed the lines of Sam's frown. "What happened earlier, Sam? You lit up the sky. You put a gigantic crater in the middle of a street."

"I don't know. I cant remember, Carly. Really, I can't remember anything except blue lights and… And that's it. I can't remember anything else." Another small rippled echoed down his bruised spine. He winced. His body felt like it was on fire.

Optimus hung over him, watching as he put both hands over his face, as if the darkness between his fingers could suddenly reveal all the answers he was searching for. Tiredness hung from his skin like death. He stepped back. "Samuel, please don't trouble yourself. Perhaps all of this was just a…" he couldn't find the right word. Things like this never happened under his care, and he wasn't sure whether or not bringing the dead back to life was something he felt indebted for, or secretly feared.

"Miracle," Carly breathed. "It's a miracle." Sam smiled softly from behind his closed hands.

_If only._

Miracles didn't come without a heavy burden to bear.

Sam was about to discover his.

* * *

The first thing the battered and bruised Colonel Lennox requested after the battle was to see his family. Ironhide drove him home, said something along the lines of not trusting the worn-out NEST crew members after the battle. Lennox didn't really care: he was tired, his ribs were broken in three different places and each of the black and blue bruises on his back were freakin' sore every time he moved.

He simply couldn't care less.

He wanted to see his family. He wanted to make sure they were alright.

His eyes were drifting closed when the Hummer switched lanes on the motorway. A gentle turn and a shift in gear had his eyes opening again.

"You should sleep, Lennox," Ironhide thrummed, his engine a faint rev in the background. Lennox grunted in response.

"Wanna be awake when I see my little girl, 'Hide."

"It's a few hours yet."

Lennox didn't answer. He didn't want to say he didn't want to sleep. He didn't want to dream of impossibilities. He settled down into the passenger's seat, staring out at the quiet motorway and the unblemished sunset ahead. The tinted windows of the Hummer were enough to blank out any suspicion that there were, indeed, alien life-forms on the planet. By Lennox's side, a human holo form materialised, two strong hands on the steering wheel, a sun- beiged face on Lennox's.

"Like I said," a pair of soft-blue eyes found his brown ones, "You should be sleeping."

Lennox smiled. "Forget it. I'll sleep when I'm home."

"I can assure you, William, I'm not going anywhere," Ironhide murmured.

"I know," he answered, all too quickly, and after a silent second, Ironhide sighed loudly.

"You humans care too much for others, even those you hate."

"Can't help it, 'Hide."

It was the closest Lennox could come to an unspoken apology.

Ironhide smiled, his eyes crinkling. "We live, we die, Lennox. It's a part of life: you should know that better than most."

"Maybe. Still doesn't hurt any less." Lennox tapped his fingers on his knee- it was a nervous trait, one Epps pointed out before a tough mission somewhere in the middle of China a couple months back. "So don't tell me I can't mourn you if you die. Don't tell me to accept your death like it means nothing."

It was Ironhide's turn not to say a word.

Lennox swore he counted falling stars when they finally found their way back home. Annabelle's arms darted straight for him, and he let himself gather her up regardless of the sharp slick of pain that darted through his ribcage. He laughed, and if 'Hide saw tears in his eyes he refused to comment as he transformed.

Annabelle's eyes found her favourite babysitter's, and she chugged both her three year old arms up to the Autobot. " 'Hide! 'Hide! You're back!" she exclaimed, a wicked gleam in her beautiful blue eyes. Lennox laughed again, then looked up to the Autobot.

It was then that Ironhide understood what Colonel William Lennox meant by the words_ "Don't tell me to accept your death like it means nothing."_

What he was really saying was_ "You mean something to _**_us_**_."_


	4. Chapter 4

_Sam is standing on a battlefield._

_It's Chicago: there's silence in sight and no traffic._

_Papers and rubble and a small trickle of water drowns the bitten-gravel around him: he feels the wind lift the back of his shirt as he turns to face the other end of the street. He's standing on the Eisenhower Expressway. The heat of the sun thrills down the back of his neck like fire._

_Facing him is none other than the angel coated in bright pink eyes and shades of petal-white. _

_She's staring at him, feet wide apart, ready to challenge. He isn't sure why._

_"Is something going to happen here?" he asks._

_"Watch," she replies._

_Above them, Cybertron blots the human sky out. Black rains down from the cloudy heavens. From far away, he can hear thunder. He covers his ears, but it's no use. _

_Earth, Sam realises, will crumble to ash and dust, and Cybertron will-_

Sam's eyes flared open and his breaths came and went in short pants. The med bay was as silent as a breeze, and it was dark. The healthy green of the heart monitor sat comfortably by Sam's side, and it beeped a ticking time alongside the frantic mutterings of his heart beat.

A flare of dim headlights blinded Sam's eyes.

Bumblebee.

He let his hand fall, and a small smile graced his lips. "Hey, Bee." The car revved and crawled as close as it could to the bedside, before transforming over Sam. Blue optics shone brighter than any light over his head, and he grinned, shifting his weight on the bed. "Is Carly okay?"

_"She gone to bed, chap. She gone to bed." _The scout replied, his optics widening and dimming. A second passed.

"Are you okay?" Sam's voice was a bare whisper.

_'So tell me now, where was my fault, in loving you with my whole heart?' _The radio crooned.

Mumford and Sons. Sam's heart wrenched in two to hear those lyrics. He knew the song well, had danced with Carly to it a few months back.

"I'm sorry, Bee. Really. I'm sorry." His voice felt empty in the darkness.

_"Why didn't you wait for me?"_ the whisper of a young female voice shot through the radio. _"I could've helped you- I- I'm so sorry-" _Bee's optics closed slowly in the din, and suddenly Sam couldn't see in the dark. He reached out, grappled with the heavy, blinding darkness. Bee was silent enough that he couldn't even see how the scout had reached around the bed with both arms, as if to hug the dense air.

The heart monitor beeped between them.

Sam breathed the silence, blinked, and then remembered pink eyes and a sudden feeling of encompassing dread. He swallowed. "Bee," he murmured quietly. "I think I need to speak to Optimus."

Bee's optics opened, and Sam jumped. He didn't realise how close the scout had come to him. Quickly, before Bee could pull away, Sam reached out for his jaw plate, and pulled him as close as he could. He peered deep into those blue optics, as if he could see the spark, his soul, hovering underneath. "I didn't mean to die, Bee," he whispered softly. "I'm sorry you had to see that, but if I didn't move, then none of us would be here now. I had no choice."

_"Ya couldn't a waited for us, could ya?" _Bee's facial expression went completely against the twang and laugh of the quote. Sam refused to look away from his eyes.

"If I waited, you would've come, but by then it would've been too late. Maybe not for you Autobots. You'd survive no matter what. But for us-" he stopped, thinking of what could've happened above the earth had he waited a minute or two longer. Cybertron had come into their atmosphere like a moth to light- it wouldn't take a genius to know how close all of them came to their own end. "-it would've been too late, and I didn't want that to happen. Bee, I swear… I'm so sorry." His voice broke at the very end. He was happy Carly wasn't here to see this. She would've understood what he had to do: she would've hated him for leaving her like that, but she would've understood.

Bee wouldn't, though.

Bee had seen his best friend, his brother, lying on the hard gravel ground and thought the world must've ended in those few precious moments between Sam's last breaths and his first ones after.

Sam closed his eyes against the tear that fell against his bruised cheek. He wiped it away, then went to climb out of the bed.

Pain lanced through his back, and he winced, but he kept moving. He refused to look back to see if Bee followed. He didn't want to cry, not here, not when someone else was counting on him.

_"You think you're a hero-?"_

_Stop it, Dylan. Stop it._

He dropped his feet into a pair of scuffed shoes, and gritted his teeth against the shock of pain when he pulled his arms through a jumper. Bandages snaked over every inch of his skin, and he knew the overdose of painkillers he was on was keeping the bite out of the burns on his chest and arms.

Outside the med bay the entire hangar was quiet. Diego Garcia, Sam reminded himself. Diego Garcia, in the middle of nowhere. A balmy heat ran through wide, square open doors of the main hangar, and if he squinted, he could see all the Autobots in recharge spaced out at all corners of the hangar. Optimus, unfortunately, sat all the way off in the distance, next to the open entrance.

_It's so quiet._

He stepped out of the entrance of the med bay, and walked as silently as he could toward the end of the hangar. A flare of lights from Rachet told him he was being watched, and Sam rolled his eyes at the paramedic van.

"Nothing gets past you," he muttered. When Rachet flared his lights again, another warning, Sam chose to completely ignore him. If Rachet saw him, then that meant everyone else could too. _Wow, Witwicky. Way to be smart. _"Okay, **look**, I'm walking _toward _Optimus, okay? Seriously, what are you thinking, I'm going to leave the hangar? And okay, I'm not stupid, Skids, I can see that from the corner of my eye."

The green car squeaked from behind him.

The passenger door of Optimus's red and blue truck opened. Sam reached for the handle and winced as he pulled himself up into the seat, thankful the Autobot didn't transform. He didn't want to have to stand.

"You should be recharging, Samuel." It was a command, not a statement.

"Yeah, I should be doing a lot of things, but right now I need to ask you a question," Sam fired back. "What happened while I was out? What happened to Cybertron?"

"When you destroyed the control pillar, Cybertron was destroyed with it. The planet sank back into a black hole and swallowed itself into a cloud of dark shadows. Cybertron is gone, Samuel. It's all gone," Optimus repeated it, as if the words didn't taste right. To Sam, they were horrible to hear.

Cybertron was **their home**.

He destroyed _**their home.**_

"I'm sorry," he said, dropping his line of sight to his feet. "Really, I am. I know it doesn't mean much, and it seems all I can say is sorry, but I am." He rubbed his eyes, trying to fight away the sudden sleepiness and the onslaught of tears.

"Samuel, go back to your sleeping chambers," Optimus repeated. Sam ignored him.

"You want to know what happened with the Matrix. Listen, I'm not sure. But I do know this. Something bad is coming. I can't say what it is, because I don't really know, and I know it seems silly and stupid because I don't know anything, but- but I know. _I know_ something bad is coming."

Optimus remained silent, as if waiting for Sam to further his argument.

"I met someone, I don't know who, in my dreams. She brought me back, she helped me to bring Ironhide and the others back. She told me I had a choice to do something. I don't know what it is Optimus, but something seriously bad is coming," Sam finished, out of breath, tired, and feeling utterly stupid. Seriously. He could feel the danger lurking in his bones, and yet he couldn't explain it properly.

"I gave you the right amount of morphine, Sam," Rachet's voice echoed through Optimus's radio. "You shouldn't be hallucinating-"

"I'm not bloody hallucinating, Rachet- Look, how else are you guys gonna try and explain what happened back in Chicago? **I was dead.** Technically speaking, I couldn't exactly see what was going on."

"We believe the Matrix acted of it's own accord," Optimus filled in, lamely.

"And the Matrix suddenly brings _people_ back to life too?" Sam fired back.

"We can't explain it, either, Samuel. We do not possess enough knowledge to rule out whatever happened yesterday."

Sam stayed quiet, methodically running ideas through his mind before he sat back in the seat. "Fine, then. Have it your way, Optimus. But if something were to happen-"

"_Nothin'_ will happen, Sammy-boy," Mudflap murmured in the background. "_Nothin'_".

"And if something does? Would you just put it down to the Matrix playing God and deciding machine and human are both made up of the same-"

"Samuel. Stop." Optimus's door opened, a clear dismissal. To say he was shocked would've been an understatement. Sam simply stared at the open door. Optimus never done that before. Never.

"Fine," he whispered. His heart pounded under his ribcage. It ached too. "Fine, then. But don't say I didn't warn you guys. Don't tell me-" he climbed out of the truck, wincing when his jumped from the high step. "- that in the end I didn't warn you."

His jaw locked of it's own accord and he walked toward the entrance of the hangar. Rachet's lights blinked behind him in the background. "Don't," Sam said. "Don't even think about it. I'm going for a walk and I want to be in bloody peace."

His veins screamed under the surface. Sweat beaded his skin. His head throbbed.

He blinked and through his eyes he saw alien writing. Words he couldn't decipher.

He kept walking, and fell asleep somewhere out on the small island under the blinking stars.

_Pink eyes turned dark under the gleam of the sun._

_Sam thought they were a bloody shade of vermillion-red. Decepticon red._

_"Watch," she said again. Cybertron was falling from the heavens again._

_He watched her._

_This wasn't right. She wasn't right._

_Something wasn't right._

_In one hand he held the Matrix._

_In the other he held the Allspark._

At five o' clock that morning, Will opened his eyes from the light doze he'd been under. He couldn't sleep, and Annabelle's weight over him was beginning to suffocate him. Sarah slept next to him, her arm curled under his head. He blinked, and the darkness was not a comforting sight.

Quietly, he sat up, and lay Annabelle down on the bed. His muscles screamed for sleep.

He _couldn't_ sleep. He didn't want to.

He saw faces. He saw death. He saw smoke and screams and a world coming down on theirs in his dreams.

He had PTSD. He was a soldier. But this was by far the worst case of it he'd ever had in his life. He sat perched on the edge of the bed waiting for the quiver in his body to dull down to a slight trembling. He waited for the fear in his chest to quell into bare fragments of tiredness.

He got off the bed, walked toward the open window and looked out to the stars. Ironhide sat in the driveway, and as soon as his sensors caught hold of Will's signature, he transformed as silently as he could.

He held out an open palm for Will, and his friend climbed onto it without a word. Ironhide set him down on the ground and transformed back, holding open a door for him. Will didn't move, the memories of his death still playing again and again through his mind. He blinked, and saw the battlefield, saw Sentinel Prime shoot a hole through his chest. He blinked again, and the world was so quiet he could hear his own thoughts screeching through his skull.

"What are you waiting for?" Ironhide said.

Will shook his head.

"I guess I just keep waiting for someone to tell me this isn't real," he breathed back. "Ironhide.. I can't explain it. But there's something wrong with all this. There's…" he stopped, closed his eyes, and felt the explosions in Chicago come a little too quick, a little too fast, a little too loud. His breaths turned short, and he gritted his jaw. The bodies. The blood. The fire. The papers falling like ash to the ground.

God, everything felt too real. Even his memories were too real, too… painful.

He turned his head away. "I think we need to get back to base. I'm worried."

"Will," Ironhide reasoned. "You've only been home a few hours, and your family have missed you-"

"**Our** family, Ironhide."

"You need time to rest. You haven't slept at all in the last twenty-four hours. You need to sleep."

"I can't, Ironhide," Will returned, stepping back, dizzy with swirling thoughts and a pounding headache. "I can't sleep." He stepped back further, felt himself sway. God, _everything_ hurt.

Ironhide transformed, fast, and grabbed the falling soldier in one hand.

Sarah chose that exact moment to open the front door of the house. "Ironhide? Is Will out there?" she called. "He's not in bed." Her eyes were frantic, her heart elevated. She found Will in his open palm. "Oh, God, is he alright?" She rushed down the porch and onto the front lawn. Ironhide gently lay Will out, measuring his heart rate and scanning for anything life-threatening. Sarah grasped his palm, and felt for a pulse. She sat back further on her feet.

"PTSD," she murmured.

Ironhide remained silent. They both knew that, and it occurred so often that Sarah didn't need to send him into the doctor anymore to diagnose it. Of course, if it were the normal army, both she and her husband knew that Will would've been called off the field many years ago.

But Will was tied to the Autobots and their cause, and no matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't let them go.

He _didn't want_ to.

"Shall I-"

Sarah shook her head.

"I think Will should go back with you," she murmured. Her hands were shaking, from sadness, from pain, from a loss no wife should have to bear. "If he has something on his mind, he _needs_ to clear it, before he can safely come back to us."

Ironhide respected this woman more than any he'd ever encountered in all the years he lived, lost and fought.

"Bring him home again, Ironhide," she murmured, looking up to him with blue eyes as bright as the sun. "And stay with us next time. Don't go leaving us so soon, okay? Annabelle missed you the last time."

"Annabelle would forget us very easily, Sarah, and you and I both know that," Ironhide murmured, unable to bear with what she was actually saying. Will could never keep anything from his wife. Sarah shook her head.

"Annabelle missed you more than anything in all the world," she replied, "I missed you, too."

Ironhide didn't know what to say. He couldn't: the Autobots were his family, and Will and his were his friends. He'd do anything for them to make sure they were alright, but-

Sarah wanted this to be Will's last. The stress of keeping up was finally taking it's toll. All the years he spent working with them, and each attack he suffered after coming home, seeing dead bodies amount and more suffering than was humanly possible, watching alien life-forms destroy places that once flourished the world map and moments in time destroyed and burned by creatures the human race had never known…

All of it was finally catching up on him in a way that would render him completely insane.

When that time came, Ironhide knew, knew with every fibre of his spark, that he would have to leave Will for good.

And that was what truly killed him.

Sarah helped him carry Will into the back of the Hummer, and when she packed enough clothes to last him a few days and put the bag in the back, she watched as Ironhide left with Will in it with tear-streaked cheeks and a farewell wave.

Above her, the stars turned to ashen light as the sun began to rise.

She wasn't sure what the day would bring.


End file.
